Can you really die from peeing on the third rail?

A man heading home from a night of bar-hopping reportedly died from electrocution Monday after urinating on the third rail of the G train tracks in Brooklyn.

Well, at least according to the New York Post, which credits unnamed sources with saying that “a drunken man was electrocuted and killed relieving himself on the third rail in Brooklyn this morning.”

Other news outlets heard from transit authorities that 30-year-old Matthew Zeno died by electrocution from falling on the third rail after panicking to get out of the way of an oncoming train. His friend got shocked, too, from trying to pull him up off the super-charged conduit, but survived in stable condition.

The incident and the Post’s apparent misinformation renewed the debate over whether it’s possible to die peeing on third rails, which The Atlantic explored in a column posted today (with colorful language, mind you).

“There have been plenty of reports of death while peeing, but few have confirmed that the pee-to-rail contact was the actual cause of death, rather than electrocution for touching a 600-plus-volt line,” The Atlantic notes.

A cursory Google search brings up news stories, blogs, Yahoo! answers and other accounts of fatal (or at least painful) third rail urinations. But none definitively cite death-by-pee-induced-electrocution. Some guy tried to relieve himself on the tracks of Chicago’s subway last year, but died from falling, not peeing, on the third rail. Other stories repeat similar circumstances: Dude tries to pee, but falls.

Calls to BART about the dangers of weren’t immediately returned.

The highest-profile debunking came in 2009, when the “MythBusters” TV crew put it to the test. They found it’s virtually impossible to get electrocuted by the typical third rail’s 600-or-so-volt charge when standing on dry ground with regular rubber-soled shoes about standing distance away. The charge is too weak and the stream too dribbly.

After an anticlimactic first experiment, the TV show hosts upped the ante, placing both of the dummy’s hands on the rail and having the transparent plastic “O’Malley” pee about three inches from the electrified metal beam. The result: Lethal jolting. The lesson: If you must pee on a train track, don’t do it awkwardly close with both hands gripping the rail.